Pelham Wodehouse - The Girl on the Boat

"Do it again!"

"Tell it again?"

"Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again."

"Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Our souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their deepest depths, saying.... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner ... saying 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that? Well, as I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on the deck...."

"Did you writhe?" asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest.

"I certainly did!"

"That's good!"

"But not for long."

"That's bad!"

"She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel."

"Switch off the light when you've finished."

"She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned with a mixture of some description in a glass. I don't know what it was. It had Worcester Sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me drink it. She said it was what she always used in Africa for bull-calves with the staggers. Well, believe me or believe me not ... are you asleep?"

"Yes."

"Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was walking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able to look over the side from time to time and comment on the beauty of the moon on the water.... I have said some mordant things about women since I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. They still apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased to include the whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faith in Woman. Sam! Sam!"

"What?"

"I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in Woman."

"Oh, all right."

Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smile on his face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, broken only by the distant purring of the engines.

At about twelve-thirty a voice came from the lower berth.

"Sam!"

"What is it now?"

"There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling me she once killed a panther with a hat-pin."

Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress.

Silence fell again.

"At least I think it was a panther," said Eustace Hignett at a quarter past one. "Either a panther or a puma."

A week after the liner "Atlantic" had docked at Southampton Sam Marlowe might have been observed—and was observed by various of the residents—sitting on a bench on the esplanade of that rising watering-place, Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on the south coast of England are blots on the landscape, but though I am aware that by saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the others—none are so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalte on the Bingley esplanade is several degrees more depressing than the asphalte on other esplanades. The Swiss waiters at the Hotel Magnificent, where Sam was stopping, are in a class of bungling incompetence by themselves, the envy and despair of all the other Swiss waiters at all the other Hotels Magnificent along the coast. For dreariness of aspect Bingley-on-the-Sea stands alone. The very waves that break on its shingle seem to creep up the beach reluctantly, as if it revolted them to have to come to such a place.

Why, then, was Sam Marlowe visiting this ozone-swept Gehenna? Why, with all the rest of England at his disposal, had he chosen to spend a week at breezy, blighted Bingley?

Simply because he had been disappointed in love.

Nothing is more curious than the myriad ways in which reaction from an unfortunate love-affair manifests itself in various men. No two males behave in the same way under the spur of female fickleness. Archilochum , for instance, according to the Roman writer, proprio rabies armavit iambo . It is no good pretending out of politeness that you know what that means, so I will translate. Rabies —his grouch— armavit —armed— Archilochum —Archilochus— iambo —with the iambic— proprio —his own invention. In other words, when the poet Archilochus was handed his hat by the lady of his affections, he consoled himself by going off and writing satirical verse about her in a new metre which he had thought up immediately after leaving the house. That was the way the thing affected him.

On the other hand, we read in a recent issue of a London daily paper that John Simmons (31), a meat-salesman, was accused of assaulting an officer while in the discharge of his duty, at the same time using profane language whereby the officer went in fear of his life. Constable Riggs deposed that on the evening of the eleventh instant while he was on his beat, prisoner accosted him and, after offering to fight him for fourpence, drew off his right boot and threw it at his head. Accused, questioned by the magistrate, admitted the charge and expressed regret, pleading that he had had words with his young woman, and it had upset him.

Neither of these courses appealed to Samuel Marlowe. He had sought relief by slinking off alone to the Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea. It was the same spirit which has often moved other men in similar circumstances to go off to the Rockies to shoot grizzlies.

To a certain extent the Hotel Magnificent had dulled the pain. At any rate, the service and cooking there had done much to take his mind off it. His heart still ached, but he felt equal to going to London and seeing his father, which of course he ought to have done seven days before.

He rose from his bench—he had sat down on it directly after breakfast—and went back to the hotel to inquire about trains. An hour later he had begun his journey and two hours after that he was at the door of his father's office.

The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow and Appleby are in Ridgeway's Inn, not far from Fleet Street. The brass plate, let into the woodwork of the door, is misleading. Reading it, you get the impression that on the other side quite a covey of lawyers await your arrival. The name of the firm leads you to suppose that there will be barely standing-room in the office. You picture Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes for Prescott to discuss with him the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and Appleby treading on your toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these legal firms dwindle. The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a Prescott, there an Appleby, till, before you know where you are, you are down to your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of Marlowe, Thorpe—what I said before—was, at the time with which this story deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the firm and father of the celebrated black-face comedian, Samuel of that ilk; and the outer office, where callers were received and parked till Sir Mallaby could find time for them, was occupied by a single clerk.

When Sam opened the door this clerk, John Peters by name, was seated on a high stool, holding in one hand a half-eaten sausage, in the other an extraordinarily large and powerful-looking revolver. At the sight of Sam he laid down both engines of destruction and beamed. He was not a particularly successful beamer, being hampered by a cast in one eye which gave him a truculent and sinister look; but those who knew him knew that he had a heart of gold and were not intimidated by his repellent face. Between Sam and himself there had always existed terms of great cordiality, starting from the time when the former was a small boy and it had been John Peters' mission to take him now to the Zoo, now to the train back to school.